System Link amass quite an arsenal of Show Technology gear

Posted on Friday, September 28th, 2012

You may not have heard of Perth based production company System Link as they have kept under the radar slowly amassing a fabulous stock of gear including Martin MAC101s, MAC350’s, a M1 console, Unique Hazers, Pro Shop Blinder Bars and TriColor PAR cans and also a coolux system.

Nearly all of this gear was used for an Evermore show at Perth’s latest venue Printhall which is more a bar and restaurant than live music venue. Consequently this gave the guys from System Link quite a few challenges most of which were overcome by their wise choice of gear.

“It was a pre-opening of the venue for charity and we were asked to provide a basic light show but we used the event as a bit of a show case,” explained Kane Pountney, managing director of System Link. “We’ve built our company slowly in the background but now we want to hit the ground running with some good equipment and this was an ideal event to promote ourselves. However we didn’t want to look stupid by going too overboard!”

The show was of great success with Kane reporting that he received many leads from the event which should lead to plenty of new work.

Twelve of System Link’s twenty-four Martin MAC101 moving head LED lights were used and Kane was delighted with their performance.

“The MAC101 is awesome!” he declared. It’s great to be able to put one small case that contains eight lights in the car. They’re super punchy, really fast and easy to use. It doesn’t matter where you put them as you always seem to get a great look and effect from them. They use hardly any power which is great in many of the venues we set up in.”

To compliment the MAC101 fixtures System Link purchased eight Martin MAC350 fixtures that also utilize LED technology.

“We wanted something to compliment the beam effect of the MAC101 fixtures by adding gobos and other effects,” commented Kane. “Like the MAC101, they require zero maintenance and you don’t have to worry about carrying spare lamps.”

System Link now own sixteen Pro Shop TriColour PAR cans, eight Quad MultiPARS and twelve Pro Shop Blinder Bars, which offered a simple solution to a tricky problem at the Evermore show.

“We were struggling for positions for front wash so we placed the Blinder Bars across the front of the stage and shone them back at the performers,” said Kane. “They lit them up from underneath and were quite a good effect in the way that we could white-out the entire back wall when fired up. We did manage some front light from our Pro Shop TriColour PAR cans which were hung off a balcony.”

A Martin M1 console was chosen as the company’s preferred lighting console as it is so easy to navigate – a must for a company that started out as just an audio provider!

“We were always being asked if we provided lighting too so eventually we decided it would be advantageous to do so,” remarked Kane. “I started out with an MA Lighting Node on my PC for operating smaller gigs whilst I also mixed audio. But we needed something that could handle bigger gigs and the Martin M1 console was highly recommended. We did as much research as we could and no one has given it a bad review. We’ve done quite a few shows with our M1 and it’s been great. The help resources online are just endless – there are heaps of clips on Youtube which is great when you’re an audio guy.”